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Seven new defence technologies for joint development have been offered by US defence secretary Chuck Hagel in meetings with his Indian counterparts, say Indian and US sources.

Hagel –on a three-day visit to India -- alluded to one of them, big data, in a Saturday speech on bilateral defence relations and spoke of “over a dozen concrete proposals” being on the table. Sources say the United States has also offered a number of cyber security options to India.

One of the key offers, big data — in which US leads the world — involves employing path-breaking algorithms to help predict terrorist attacks and for smart surveillance, such as using family relationships to find the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. Other technologies on the table include the cutting edge anti-tank Javelin missile, the Hawk 21 surface-to-air missile and magnetic catapults, which help larger planes take off from smaller ships.

“The DTTI is the centrepiece of our defence relationship,” said Hagel at the event organised by the Observer Research Foundation.

Under the DTTI, the US had asked India to join in co-producing and co-developing a series of cutting edge weapons and technologies. Though the US offered 10 weapons technologies, the programme failed to take off under the last government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to put the private sector in the front seat of India’s defence sector and reduce the country’s dependence on imported arms. With the private sector insisting on the need for foreign technology, the US’s joint weapons development offers are seen as a potential match for both sides.

Hagel held a roundtable with India Inc on Saturday evening. In contrast, the UPA government kept the Indian private sector at a distance from the DTTI, said industry sources.

Implementation, however, remains a concern, say sources. Hagel, too, warned against “red tape” on both sides getting in the way of building military industrial cooperation.

He also spoke of the need for “greater clarity” on the offsets needed under the new 49% FDI in defence policy.

Hagel noted the US has not proposed such a co-development, co-production programme “with any other country”.

In addition, the defence secretary said he had invited Jaitley to meet other US ministers in September to discuss a new bilateral defence framework as the existing five-year agreement expires next year.

“Our thoughts are with Jaswant Singh who is one of India’s most distinguished soldier-statesmen. He transformed India-US relations,” said Hagel. The former BJP leader has been hospitalized since Friday and is in a critical condition

abhik wrote:If the Javelin deal goes through then we can kiss man portable Nag goodbye.

Could you post any credible sources about :1. the existence of a man-portable Nag, or2. a proper project proposal to develop one that postulates a concrete "available by" time line

Unfortunately, we cannot really use fantasies of BRF jingoes, or theoretical "can be dones" to go after very real threats across the LoC. Any comparison has to include all 4 elements: Available on __, Numbers available/year, Cost, Capability

The combination of the two makes me believe that Nag manportable is not funded as a firm customer driven program yet, and is being done as an adjunct to Nag/Helina with some initial activities being funded by the DRDO budget (as is common for these exploratory programs) and a firm line of funding will be sought later.

In that vein, yes, any local Javelin will "kill" the manportable Nag. Now whether that is still ok for us to get a product earlier (Javelin Mk2 etc) depends on what is in Javelin Mk2 and what we get from it.The LRSAM program actually shows that some of these over ambitious programs end up being as delayed despite hopes that a more experienced partner will speed things up (Israel focusing on its priorities namely, Iron Dome etc).

In our case, perhaps its best to have a one time buy of Javelins or even local assembly, then this convoluted JV stuff. The key thing we don't have in Nag is the IIR CCD array. We are unlikely to get that with Javelin JV either. At least in the Nag we designed/made the rest of the seeker. In the Javelin - I doubt whether we'd get that much. Question is whether the rest of what we get to work on/build will be equal to dropping a program for making a shoulder launched MPATGM. The US (like Russia with the Yakhont/Brahmos) has a substantial MIC of its own. What do they get out of having India pick up more manufacturing? That part doesn't add up, same as it didn't for Russia when they clung onto ensuring the Yakhont was separate from Brahmos.

Magnetic catapults - these are the possibly game changing bit of tech in the three items mentioned. The Navy will appreciate that, since its not available off the shelf or even locally.

Karan M wrote:Hawk-21 is clearly obsolete and no point in even contemplating it when we have LRSAM & Akash. Its baffling as to why they sought to palm it off to India when we have better tech available.

The combination of the two makes me believe that Nag manportable is not funded as a firm customer driven program yet, and is being done as an adjunct to Nag/Helina with some initial activities being funded by the DRDO budget (as is common for these exploratory programs) and a firm line of funding will be sought later.

In that vein, yes, any local Javelin will "kill" the manportable Nag. Now whether that is still ok for us to get a product earlier (Javelin Mk2 etc) depends on what is in Javelin Mk2 and what we get from it.The LRSAM program actually shows that some of these over ambitious programs end up being as delayed despite hopes that a more experienced partner will speed things up (Israel focusing on its priorities namely, Iron Dome etc).

In our case, perhaps its best to have a one time buy of Javelins or even local assembly, then this convoluted JV stuff. The key thing we don't have in Nag is the IIR CCD array. We are unlikely to get that with Javelin JV either. At least in the Nag we designed/made the rest of the seeker. In the Javelin - I doubt whether we'd get that much. Question is whether the rest of what we get to work on/build will be equal to dropping a program for making a shoulder launched MPATGM. The US (like Russia with the Yakhont/Brahmos) has a substantial MIC of its own. What do they get out of having India pick up more manufacturing? That part doesn't add up, same as it didn't for Russia when they clung onto ensuring the Yakhont was separate from Brahmos.

Magnetic catapults - these are the possibly game changing bit of tech in the three items mentioned. The Navy will appreciate that, since its not available off the shelf or even locally.

Except the magnetic catapult every other item seems to be a mass order item, stuff thats cheap (relatively) and does the dog end of the work. India has lower production and R&D costs, so it sorta makes sense for them to outsource the development and manufacturing (Yes, including the big data program) They are getting a second production center at a geographical extreme and manufacturing is cheaper. So it all adds up to more profits for Unkill when he exports the tech to third world countries (Potential buyers would be the sub-saharans,central asians etc, places where India would be a favored hub)

agupta wrote:Could you post any credible sources about :1. the existence of a man-portable Nag, or2. a proper project proposal to develop one that postulates a concrete "available by" time line

Unfortunately, we cannot really use fantasies of BRF jingoes, or theoretical "can be dones" to go after very real threats across the LoC. Any comparison has to include all 4 elements: Available on __, Numbers available/year, Cost, Capability

With the MILAN ATGM are already being produced in India is importing another man portable ATGM really that urgent? Also if the IA did want to move on to a Fire-and-Forget missile a programme to develop the same should have been initiated with appropriate lead time which as it seems hasn't happened. One gets the Impression that IA doesn't want to give the DRDO a chance to meet its requirements, which I don't think is acceptable.

GopiN wrote:Except the magnetic catapult every other item seems to be a mass order item, stuff thats cheap (relatively) and does the dog end of the work. India has lower production and R&D costs, so it sorta makes sense for them to outsource the development and manufacturing (Yes, including the big data program) They are getting a second production center at a geographical extreme and manufacturing is cheaper. So it all adds up to more profits for Unkill when he exports the tech to third world countries (Potential buyers would be the sub-saharans,central asians etc, places where India would be a favored hub)

Why do you get the impression that they are outsourcing the R&D or manufacturing? It might be another sham "JV".

"This can be gauged from the fact that the latest order for 4,100 "advanced'' Milan-2T missiles with "tandem warheads'' to replenish the Army's dwindling ATGM stock comes barely a few months after the Rs 1,380-crore contract for a staggering 15,000 Konkurs-M missiles. "

Good - if true, then we need to know timeline for when ready for induction.

Still makes perfect sense to cover Production technology and Seeker technology maturation with a Javelin co-production....otherwise we end up LCA: nice tech demo and lousy execution of Demo--> Production to Scale. And Javelin can cover our immediate needs until 2018/2020.

I coontinue to be impressed with AC... man who knows about blocking and tackling, going back to fundamentals and using max leverage from that.

Agreed. To me it does not matter that much, since it reduces the "TINA" factor and gives India leverage in negotiations. In any case, if somehow, the BDL/DRDO get serious about absorbing production technology, and uses it to make generational improvements to the Son-of-Nag - then it will have served its purpose.

Somehow many BRFites tend to forget that license-manufacturing is counted as an offset precisely because its " discounted cash" - if the receiving organization does not use it to learn production techniques to be used someplace else, its the same as taking that 30% cash (or say 20% to be more precise) and burning it - or using it as bribe money. Same end result.

Having a mix of a few thousand of "hi" end Javelins and a few thousand "lower-end" (say because of-seeker, perhaps!) Son-of-Nags at a sufficiently lower cost in the Services armory (physically present as opposed to PowerPoint or tech demo) will finally enable a fitting and flexible response to death by a thousand cuts.

Well, its not often that we leverage our manufacturing TOT--> local indigenous programs. Reasons could be many - over legal attitude, PSU culture etc and also TOT providers. IMHO, offsets separately are better than TOMT because in former supplier has to guarantee supplier gets upto learning curve or it will affect other programs.. otherwise in TOMT, they have a vested interest in delaying stuff because we import more kits..

Inside an elegant Art Deco mansion in central Delhi, its lush gardens dotted with flowerbeds, trees and the odd peacock, staff at the Intelligence Bureau’s (IB) operations directorate have again been staring hard at data snatched from cyberspace, hoping that somewhere in the cloud of ones and zeros lie the leads they need to preempt new terror threats.

India’s desperate war rests on a system called Netra, commissioned in 2009, drawing its name from the Sanskrit word for eye — or, more prosaically, from its job description, NEtwork TRaffic Analysis.

Netra was born in the years after 9/11, when India’s intelligence services realised terrorist groups like the LeT were making extensive use of the internet, and wanted tools similar to the US’s PRISM digital espionage system. Housed in hundreds of internet hubs across the country, Netra vacuums up terabytes of data, and then trawls through it for keywords of interests. The system, designed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, has won several technology awards.

The system has done what it is designed to do, intelligence officials said. It helps track traffic to websites the intelligence services suspect might be linked to jihadi activity. That opens the way to locate target computers and mobile phones — and infiltrate them with software that can monitor keystrokes, and record conversations.

but NTRO yet to deliver

It’s what Netra can’t do, though, that is causing concern. The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), tasked with creating software to decode encrypted internet traffic, hasn’t so far been able to deliver. That means India’s intelligence services can’t listen in to voice-over-internet services like Skype and Viber, or text-based systems like What’sApp, Fring and Facebook.

GopiN wrote:Except the magnetic catapult every other item seems to be a mass order item, stuff thats cheap (relatively) and does the dog end of the work. India has lower production and R&D costs, so it sorta makes sense for them to outsource the development and manufacturing (Yes, including the big data program) They are getting a second production center at a geographical extreme and manufacturing is cheaper. So it all adds up to more profits for Unkill when he exports the tech to third world countries (Potential buyers would be the sub-saharans,central asians etc, places where India would be a favored hub)

Why do you get the impression that they are outsourcing the R&D or manufacturing? It might be another sham "JV".

Jha is saying that Javelin is a balance between operational readiness and further development. The plan is to continue developing Nag while absorbing what we can from any JV/CD and not subordination country's defence to domestic dev efforts. Very pragmatic, if we have the resources.

Other items on the U.S. list of proposals purportedly include cooperation on big data, a naval gun, a scatterable anti-tank mine system, a jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle, naval multirole helicopters, the Hawk XXI surface-to-air missile and, rather interestingly, the electromagnetic launch system for India’s larger next-generation aircraft carriers. In addition, New Delhi and Washington have been exploring potential cooperative research in high-temperature superalloys, nanotechnology-based chemical and biological warfare detection, roadside bomb deterrents and military neuroscience.

All this shows that Washington has realized it must push forward at the government-to-government level through credible technology proposals in order to sustain the trade component of the defense technology initiative. This has the makings of a strategy similar to that of Russia, which is engaged in over 200 joint projects with DRDO and has significant allies in India’s public sector.

Given India’s experience with American sanctions after the 1998 Pokharan nuclear tests, it is likely to scrupulously avoid directly buying large quantities of offensive American systems whose delivery could be subject to political considerations.

Instead, India will insist on domestic production under technology transfer agreements, while also refusing to sign overarching American end-user agreements for jointly produced weapons. As for grand narratives such as the need to balance China, the Modi government is now looking to do so through better border infrastructure and increased munitions production, rather than through piecemeal buys of expensive American systems. This is why relatively small artillery and helicopter deals pursued by Washington aren’t nearing fruition.

vic wrote:Pilatus can put out 100 hours per month, point is why is IAF only wanting to use it for 30 hours per month? To increase requirement of imports?

Vic, Can you prove this?

After the PC-7MkII Landings Life Extension program which ended in 2012, PC-7MkII is certified for 30000 landings or 10000 flight hours. Before this program, the original certification of PC-7MkII was for 20000 landings or 10000 flight hours. This is consistent with IAF training sorties with average at 30 minutes per sortie.

At 100 hours per month, IAF will run through the fatigue life of the plane in 8.5 years. Also, just as a thought. Assuming 25 working days a month, this is close to 4 sorties per day!! Most AFs in the world would be very happy with 2 landings per day per aircraft.

Modi speech at the DRDO award function.As ususal - extempore, spontaneous and inspiring speech.I liked the bit when he equated the scientists to the Vedic Rishis.

Its amazing the way he tailors and customizes his speeches according to the audience.One day at lal-qila talking about toilets and social issues talking to aam aadmi, another day at among high-tech DRDO scientitst. I think this is an extra-ordinary ability which enables him to connect to his audience instantly.

I noticed he mingled english and hindi words frequently, focusing on getting his message across, without worrying about chasteness of the language. I also liked his use of the word, 'sanskar sankraman'.

Please watch the full video - its only 17 min. You will feel so inspired.

We have a Rishi among ourselves at the helm of the affairs of the country.

negi wrote:Wait are they trying to sell Hawk 21 to us ? I remember it hasn't changed in last 20-30 years , looks like Prithvi with gigantic wings.

That is a serious ROFL. Incidentally, the person seated next to mine on yesterday's flight was a Hawk technician. Now, he looked past his sixties and does recreational fishing. That is how old that system is!

I think you know what I'm going to say. Kill Javelin and buy 4x more of man portable Nag. I know I'm predictable, but damn. No more of this expensive US junk when superior desi alternatives are available.

vic wrote:Pilatus can put out 100 hours per month, point is why is IAF only wanting to use it for 30 hours per month? To increase requirement of imports?

Vic, Can you prove this?

After the PC-7MkII Landings Life Extension program which ended in 2012, PC-7MkII is certified for 30000 landings or 10000 flight hours. Before this program, the original certification of PC-7MkII was for 20000 landings or 10000 flight hours. This is consistent with IAF training sorties with average at 30 minutes per sortie.

At 100 hours per month, IAF will run through the fatigue life of the plane in 8.5 years. Also, just as a thought. Assuming 25 working days a month, this is close to 4 sorties per day!! Most AFs in the world would be very happy with 2 landings per day per aircraft.

According to Air Vice Marshal V.R. Chaudhuri, deputy commandant AFA Dundigal, “The training syllabus has been increased to 55 hours per trainee from the earlier 25 hours. The solo content has also increased to 14 sorties from only one sortie earlier. This amounts to the task of approximately 1,200 hours per month, making it approximately 60-70 sorties per day on PC-7 MK-II aircraft.” The IAF is looking at an utilisation rate of 300 flying hours per year per aircraft. The PC-7 MK-II has a design life of 10,000 hours and 30,000 landings per aircraft. By the end of August, the fleet had already logged 3,000 flight hours with almost 5,600 landings, and serviceability for the PC-7 MK-II fleet was at 81 per cent. Chief Instructor (Flying) at AFA Dundigal, Air Commodore Nagesh Kapoor tells FORCE, “The rate of flying is very high and that speaks a lot about the maintainability of the aircraft. Earlier, we would need three to four people looking after one aircraft, presently one aircraft is looked after by one person, which is very good. It is very easy on fuel and has tremendous endurance.” He goes on to add, “We are really exploiting this machine and we are doing a whole lot of flying. By the end of this course we would have ended up flying twice as much as we would have done six months earlier.”

So it's several orders of magnitude off. 1 200 hours per month is pretty good. Means the IAF is having the trainees fly in rotating shifts. It's fine for the IAF to do that. The HTT-40 should be in mass production by that point. It gives a definate end date for pilatus aircraft.

So, all the numbers I gave you are correct. They are very happy with 2 sorties per day per aircraft, each sortie being about 30 minutes, giving 300 hrs per year per aircraft. But that rate is creating records for a plane fielded by many air forces over multiple decades. This rate is not sustainable.

The number of pilots students will go up from the current 220 to 370 annually by 2017 (as informed by IAF to PAC). Also 55 hrs is the interim solution, the actual goal is 65 hrs per trainee. If you do the math, at 25 hours per plane per month, and at an availability of 85% (bound to come down significantly), one would need 95 planes. But that is just one requirement.

Another requirement of the course is that enough planes should be available so that the technical training and the flying can be interleaved as they should be for each student. Phase I training is completed within 24 weeks for each cadet. That is why IAF had 80-100 Deepaks (142 built) for 170-220 students and has a projected requirement of 181 aircraft for 370 students.

"DRDO is becoming hollow at the bottom," says Dr Avinash Chander, the agency's chief. He said he can induct only about 70 fresh scientists every year instead of the nearly 300 recruits it used to add annually till recently.

"The world will not wait for us. We have to run ahead of time. We should not say in 2014 that a project conceived in 1992 will take some more time,"(which project would that be?) said Modi. With defence technology evolving at a rapid rate around the globe, India cannot afford to conceptualize systems that are two steps behind what will soon hit the market.

"DRDO has to decide whether it will only react to the situation, or become pro-active and set the agenda for the global community. I have hopes from DRDO because I know it has the capability to perform," said Modi.

We have two man-portable ATGM programmes under execution being SAHMO which is Semi Active Laser Homing Missile and Man-portable Nag. Actually Javelin is now slightly dated being 20 years in production and too heavy (because of additional batteries it requires for effective deployment). But Import Jindabad!!

DRDO AWARDS for the year 2013 for outstanding contribution in various areas of technology will be given away by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in the august presence of Hon’ble Defence Minister Shri Arun Jaitley and a galaxy of dignitaries on 20th August 2014 in a brief ceremony to be held at Kothari Auditorium, DRDO Bhawan.The DRDO awards in 10 categories are being given to honour individual Scientists/Teams of DRDO, partners of DRDO from other sectors for their outstanding contributions in furthering DRDO’s efforts in achieving self-reliance.

DRDO Life Time Achievement Award 2013 is being conferred on Dr. Dipankar Banerjee formerly Director, DMRL and Chief Controller R&D of DRDO for his distinguished contributions to the field of Metallurgy, Materials science & Combat Aircraft Program.

Technology Leadership Award: In recognition of outstanding contributions and leadership qualities, the Technology Leadership Award for the year 2013 is being awarded to Shri S Anantha Narayanan, Distinguished Scientist & Director Naval Physical & Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), Kochi towards development of underwater surveillance systems, new technologies in underwater transducers, onboard processors and deployment mechanisms and fostering industrial partnerships leading to proliferation of a large number of systems in the Indian Navy.

ACADEMY EXCELLENCE AWARDS are given to members from academia associated with DRDO for research in emerging areas. The two Academy Excellence Awards for the year 2013 are being conferred on Emeritus Prof. S Mohan, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru for his noteworthy contributions to several projects of DRDO. His innovative ideas and advice have helped DEBEL to successfully carry out technology demonstration of the concept of TDLAS Oxygen Sensor for Air Borne application, Ammonia Sensor, Micro needle Array for EEG and MEMS based pressure Sensor and Prof. V Kamakoti, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai for his outstanding contributions to the area of Computer Architecture, Reconfigurable System Design and Indigenous VLSI/EDA software, Secure Operating Systems, Indigenous IPs and to improve the performance of ANURAG developed ANUPAMA/ABACUS processors using higher level design abstraction.

Silicon Trophy for the Best Systems Laboratory of DRDO is being awarded to Defence Research & Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad for outstanding contributions towards development of tactical and underwater launched guided weapon systems.

TITANIUM TROPHY for the Best Science Laboratory of DRDO is being awarded to Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences (DIPAS), Delhi for outstanding contributions in improving performance and health of the soldiers deployed at high altitude and other operational environments.

DRDO awards for PATH BREAKING RESEARCH AND OUTSTANDING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT for the year 2013 are being conferred upon:

· Dr. SC Sati,Director, Aerial Delivery Research & Development Establishment (ADRDE), Agra and his team for their outstanding contributions towards design, development, realisation and testing of P-16 Heavy Drop System comprising multi stage parachutes and platform.· Dr. S Guruprasad, Scientist ‘H’, and Director, Research & Development Establishment (Engineers) (R&DE (E)), Pune and his team for their outstanding contributions towards development of a cost effective manufacturing technology for composites, Resin Film Infusion and materials for the same, leading to realisation of large size, light weight and multifunctional structural components for military applications.· Shri RS Chandrasekhar, Scientist ‘F’, Research Centre Imarat (RCI), Hyderabad and his team have made outstanding contributions in developing innovative and robust Alignment methodologies for Inertial Navigation Systems for Air-to-Air tactical weapon and Ship-launched Strategic weapon.DRDO AWARD FOR PERFORMANCE EXCELLENCE are being conferred on Shri PS Subramanyam, Distinguished Scientist & Director, Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) Bengaluru and his team along with Dr. K Tamilmani, former Chief Executive, CEMILAC and his team towards accomplishing an unprecedented milestone in Defence Aviation through indigenous design, development and certification of a state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, Tejas for induction into services. Tejas has been granted Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) in Dec 2013. This rare feat of the team has catapulted India into the elite club of nations which possess the technological capabilities and infrastructure to build and roll out their own fighter aircraft with state-of-the-art technologies.

SPECIAL AWARD FOR STRATEGIC CONTRIBUTION 2013 is being conferred on:

· Smt. U Jeya Santhi, Scientist ‘F’ and her team for significant contributions towards successful design, development, erection and commissioning of Strategic Command and Control infrastructure comprising a secured, multi-layered, Strategic Communication Network and specialised Blast and EMP hardened structures.· Shri K Ravi Sankar, Scientist 'F', Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), Bengaluru and his team for outstanding contributions to the development of Security Solutions for Strategic Communication Networks (SCN) for securing sensitive data transmitted over PSTN links, high-speed point-to-point links which incorporate indigenous high grade encryption algorithms, automated and fast robust synchronization, user friendly end-to-end key management, innovative capture resiliency techniques with robust authentication mechanisms. · Shri Rajeev Thaman, Scientist 'F', Scientific Analysis Group (SAG), Delhi and his team have made significant contributions in developing various indigenous information security SW Solutions for Cyber Defence, which have been deployed at various Defence Establishments, Strategic Programmes and other Intelligence Agencies providing high level of security assurance.Defence Technology Absorption Award is given to DRDO’s industrial partners for their support in transformation of technologies developed by DRDO into products/systems/processes for Armed forces. The award is being given to:-

· M/s Accord Software & Systems Ltd., Bengaluru, has immensely contributed towards indigenous design, development and production of advanced high dynamics GPS+GLONASS+GAGAN receivers with state-of-the-art technologies and features in multiple configurations to the specific requirements/ specifications of Indian Defence programmes in close coordination with DRDO laboratories.· M/s Aerospace Engineers, Salem, Tamil Nadu, has displayed profound technical expertise in absorbing various technologies and has delivered high-precision and quality elastomeric products manufactured out of these technologies for use on various airborne systems developed by DRDO that include LCA, Lakshya, Nishant, Missiles, Life Saving Systems, aircrafts and helicopters.· M/s Krishna Industries, Mumbai has displayed pioneering efforts towards indigenous production of “Bulb Bars” of various sections of DMR-249A grade steel, on industrial scale, in association with DRDO for construction of warships by devising ingenious roll design, rolling parameters and novel heat treatment technique. Their sustained efforts have culminated in producing high quality bulb bars for the first time in the country, thereby meeting the requirements of the Indian Navy in a timely and cost effective manner.DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY SPIN-OFF AWARD 2013 is being awarded to Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore for significant extension work in the rural sector for the benefit of tomato farmers & women entrepreneurs by means of commercialization of tomato-based value-added products.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/pmreleases.aspx?mincode=33Encouragement some sort of at least, a round of applause! nah lets neglect engineers and scientists, only question there achievements! ..In some areas DRDO is really doing good, if put enough thrust they can make world class equipment or tech.

indranilroy wrote:So, all the numbers I gave you are correct. They are very happy with 2 sorties per day per aircraft, each sortie being about 30 minutes, giving 300 hrs per year per aircraft. But that rate is creating records for a plane fielded by many air forces over multiple decades. This rate is not sustainable.

The number of pilots students will go up from the current 220 to 370 annually by 2017 (as informed by IAF to PAC). Also 55 hrs is the interim solution, the actual goal is 65 hrs per trainee. If you do the math, at 25 hours per plane per month, and at an availability of 85% (bound to come down significantly), one would need 95 planes. But that is just one requirement.

Another requirement of the course is that enough planes should be available so that the technical training and the flying can be interleaved as they should be for each student. Phase I training is completed within 24 weeks for each cadet. That is why IAF had 80-100 Deepaks (142 built) for 170-220 students and has a projected requirement of 181 aircraft for 370 students.

Indra, I get that. But the IAF is an outlier among air forces in how much it flies. Almost all other air forces use simulators much more. So the necessity for the flying hours requirement you posted is the question.

The existing Pilatus exceed requirements.

Quoting Simulation and Training: The IAF Perspective By Air Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja

The end product is a fully operational pilot cleared on all tactical roles of the aircraft in six months with minimal flying on the aircraft.

That is for the C-130J and there is no reason it cannot be applied to all types of aircraft in the IAF inventory. No of current trainers is excessive. Switching to more simulators and waiting for the HTT-40 would not compromise operational readiness and save a lot of money.

We already have simulators for some aircraft, but lag the Chinese by a lot.